Alaoui-Jamali is Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Oncology at the Faculty of Medicine of McGill University and an associate member of the Departments of Pharmacology and Therapeutics and Rosalind & Morris Goodman Cancer Research Centre. He is also a senior scientist and leader of target/drug discovery team at the Segal Cancer Centre of the Jewish General Hospital.

His research focus encompasses understanding functional diversity and clinical implications of signaling networks that drive cancer progression to metastasis, delineating those that operate on a cancer cell autonomous basis versus those coupled to tumor microenvironment. A particular interest is towards establishing relationships to cancer cell plasticity, dormancy, recurrence, tumor immunosuppressive microenvironment, and response to therapeutics. In addition, his laboratory is actively involved in the discovery of innovative therapeutics capable of targeting invasive cancer cell variants expressing stem cell-like features.

Having been trained as a clinical neurologist followed by specialized training in Neuroimmunology my clinical interests have focused on multiple sclerosis (MS) and my laboratory activities have focused on how immune reactivity within the central nervous system can impact on tissue injury and repair. Since being at the Montreal Neurological Institute, I have had the opportunity to work with human neural cells including oligodendrocytes and their progenitors, microglia, and astrocytes. The access to human tissues enhance the opportunities to translate observations regarding mechanisms underlying tissue injury and repair in MS into the clinical setting and to study how current and emerging therapies can impact on these processes.

Gary Armstrong is Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at the Montreal Neurological Institute and a Killam Scholar. His research focuses on furthering our understanding of synaptic defects arising both at peripheral neuromuscular junctions and central spinal cord synapses in the neurodegenerative disease Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). To investigate these defects his research team uses zebrafish, an animal model uniquely suited for investigations (using electrophysiological, optogenetic, and imaging approaches) pertaining to synaptic function at all levels of the motor system. In addition, this animal model lends easily to genomic manipulations where analogous disease-associated mutations can be edited into zebrafish orthologs of human genes involved with ALS (e.g. TARDBP, FUS, CHCHD10, TBK1 and C9orf72) using the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPRs) mutagenic system. These novel gene-edited animal models permit investigations of disease-causing variants in a native context e.g. similar expression levels and patterns as opposed to transgenic animal models that often rely upon transgene over-expression and non-endogenous promotors to confer a disease phenotype.
In addition to the fundamental research, the Armstrong laboratory is also involved in translational therapeutic drug discovery where his team is developing a zebrafish drug screening platform to bridge research findings made by scientists working with cellular models of neurodegenerative diseases with zebrafish models. This will enable validation of novel therapeutics in an animal model forming a critical step in advancing drug discovery.

Dr. Geneviève Bernard received her Medical Degree (2002) and Master’s degree in Neurosciences (2003) from Université de Montréal. She completed her residency in Pediatric Neurology at McGill University (2008) and her fellowship in Neurogenetics and Movement Disorders at Université de Montréal (2011) under the supervision of Pr. Bernard Brais, Pr. Guy A Rouleau and Dr. Sylvain Chouinard. She started her career as an independent investigator and pediatric neurologist in October 2011 at the Montreal Children’s Hospital of the McGill University Health Center (MUHC) and MUHC Research Institute. She is the recipient of the Research Scholar Junior 1 salary award from the Fonds de Recherche du Québec en Santé (2012-2016) and the Canadian Institute of Health Research New Investigator salary award (2017-2022). She is currently an Associate Professor at McGill University, in the Departments of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Pediatrics and Human Genetics and a member of the Division of Medical Genetics at the MUHC. Dr. Bernard and her team, together with her international collaborators, discovered the three genes responsible for 4H leukodystrophy, for EPRS-related leukodystrophy, VARS-related neurodegenerative disease and contributed to the discovery of the causal gene for HEMS (Hypomyelination of Early Myelinating structures). Dr. Bernard published, in collaboration with Dr. Nicole Wolf (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) and numerous international collaborators, the largest clinical, radiological and genetic characterization study on 4H leukodystrophy. Dr. Bernard published numerous peer-reviewed publications, including some in high impact factor journals such as Am J Hum Genet, Arch Neurol, Mov Disord, Ann Neurol, Neurology, and Nat Commun, several book chapters and numerous abstracts. She is the Canadian representative on several international consortia, including the Global Leukodystrophy InitiAtive (GLIA).

Dr. Bertagnolli is Assistant Professor at the School of Physical and Occupational Therapy, Faculty of Medicine, and principal investigator at the Sacré-Coeur Hospital/CIUSSS Nord-de-l’Île-de-Montréal and at the Research Institute-MUHC. Her current research program focuses on elucidating mechanisms that can interrupt the formation of new blood vessels in the placenta and growing fetus in pregnancies that are severely affected by hypertensive disorders such as pre-eclampsia. Her lab uses a translational approach with genetically modified murine models and clinical samples including circulating endothelial progenitor cells and placental-derived progenitor/stem cells to investigate the mechanisms and therapies aimed at improving placental vascularization and, ultimately, preventing disease in women and their children.

Involved in the establishment of the MUHC Stem Cell Clinical Research Cord Blood Bank and served as it’s obstetric director. Collaborated with Dr Laneuville and Dr. L. Peltier in a study evaluating the use of multiple pooled clinical-grade but volume rejected Cord Blood Units for adult stem cell transplantation. My principle interests lie in fetal medicine and fetal therapy and the role of the SCT in the area of fetal structural and genetic malformations offers a vast range of potential conditions that might benefit from such therapies in the future.

Dr. Campeau specialized in medical genetics at McGill and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Baylor College of Medicine. He now practices clinical genetics at the Sainte-Justine Hospital and the Shriners Hospital for Children. His research lab studies epilepsy, epigenetic diseases and skeletal dysplasias. They identify disease-causing genes, decipher the pathophysiology, and improve the management of children affected by these conditions.

Michel Cayouette (Ph.D.) is Director of the Cellular Neurobiology Research Unit at the Montreal Clinical Research Institute (IRCM) since 2004. He is also a Full Research Professor in the Department of Medicine at Université de Montréal, and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at McGill University. His research focuses primarily on the cellular and molecular mechanisms regulating neural development and regeneration. Specifically, his lab uncovered a transcriptional cascade regulating how progenitor cells change over time to give rise to specific cell types appropriate for a given developmental stage in the mouse retina. They also discovered key regulators of asymmetric cell divisions in neural progenitors that contribute to the production of cell diversity in the nervous system. In 2017, Dr. Cayouette received the Research Scholar Emeritus award from the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Santé (FRQS) and he holds the IRCM Foundation Gaëtane and Roland Pillenière Chair in Retina Biology. He is Director of the FRQS Vision Health Research Network, Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Foundation Fighting Blindness Canada, Member of the CIHR College of Reviewers, and sits on the Editorial Boards of the journals Neurogenesis (Landes Bioscience), Stem Cells (Wiley-Blackwell), Frontiers in Neuroscience, and acts as section editor for the Journal of Experimental Neuroscience (SAGE Publishing). His research program is funded by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Foundation grant, the Alzheimer Society, The Foundation Fighting Blindness, and the Brain Canada/Krembil Research Foundations.

Marta Cerruti is Associate Professor in Materials Engineering at McGill University. Since 2011, she is Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Bio-synthetic interfaces. Her research focuses on controlling interactions between material surfaces and biomolecules. She is particularly interested in understanding how biominerals are formed in our body, for the purpose of either helping their reconstruction (bone tissue engineering) or preventing their formation (pathological calcification). She published more than 90 papers on journals including JACS, Advanced Materials, Nanoscale, etc, two book chapters, and reported five inventions. In 2019 she was inducted as member of the Royal Society of Canada Collage of New Artists, Scholars and Scientists; in 2017 and 2018 she was one of the 55 young scientists who participated in the World Economic Forum. Her research is often featured on mainstream media, including global news and CBC.

La Dre Natasha Chang a obtenu son doctorat en biochimie de l’Université McGill et a poursuivi ses stages postdoctoraux à l’Institut de recherche de l’Hôpital d’Ottawa. Dr Chang s’est joint à McGill à titre de professeur adjoint au Département de biochimie en 2019. La recherche au sein de son laboratoire se concentre sur la compréhension des mécanismes de signalisation moléculaire qui régulent la fonction des cellules souches musculaires et sur la façon dont ces voies sont modifiées dans le contexte de la maladie dégénérative musculaire et du cancer musculaire. L’objectif ultime de l’équipe de recherche du Dr Chang est d’identifier des cibles moléculaires pour améliorer la capacité de régénération des cellules souches endogènes ainsi que des stratégies pour améliorer la thérapie de transplantation de cellules souches.

Dr. Guojun Chen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, an Associate Member of Rosalind & Morris Goodman Cancer Research Centre at McGill University. His research interests include biomaterials, drug delivery, cancer immunotherapy, and genome editing.

My lab research focuses on defining basic mechanisms involved in the disruption of immune tolerance in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). We are specifically interested in understanding the role that adult stem cells have in initiating and perpetuating this disease. Ongoing studies aim to characterize the biology of human hematopoietic and mesenchymal stem cells in patients with recent onset and established RA, the cross talk between stem cells and other immune cells, and the impact that interventions targeting stem cells have on the restoration of immune function.

Dr. Crist’s laboratory at the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research investigates the molecular biology underlying skeletal muscle development and regeneration. Deepening our understanding of how muscle stem cells develop and function will be key to realizing regenerative medicine based approaches to treating muscle disorders.

Raquel Cuella Martin joined the Department of Human Genetics and the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Genomic Medicine as an assistant professor in August 2022. She obtained her Ph.D. at the University of Oxford and completed her postdoctoral training as an EMBO fellow at Columbia University in New York. Her research contributions span the fields of genome editing, tumor suppression, and the response to DNA damage. Her research program incorporates advances in precision genome editing technologies to study gene (and protein) function, understand human genetic variation, and explore target druggability.

Professor Gustavo Duque, MD, Ph.D., FRACP, is a geriatrician and biomedical scientist with a research interest in the mechanisms, potential therapies, and biomarkers for age-related bone loss, osteoporosis, sarcopenia, osteosarcopenia, and frailty in older persons. He is also looking at the effect of vitamin D, exercise, and proteins on bone and muscle mass.
His initial training included Internal Medicine at Javeriana University (Colombia) and Geriatric Medicine, which he completed at McGill University in Montreal (Canada). Subsequently, he obtained his Ph.D. at McGill University in 2003 with a thesis entitled ‘Molecular Changes of the Aging Osteoblast’ under the supervision of Dr. Richard Kremer. Between 2003 and November 2007, he joined the McGill University Medical School faculty as a member of the Division of Geriatric Medicine and as a Researcher at the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research. In November 2007, he moved to Australia to join the Faculty as Associate Professor and Head of the Division of Geriatric Medicine and Director of the Musculoskeletal Ageing Research Program at Sydney Medical School Nepean -University of Sydney. In 2012, he was promoted to Professor of Medicine at the University of Sydney. Between 2015 and 2022, Professor Duque held the positions of Chair of Medicine and Director of the Australian Institute for Musculoskeletal Science at the University of Melbourne.
In 2022, Prof. Duque assumed the roles of Full Professor, Dr. Joseph Kaufmann Chair in Geriatric Medicine, Director – RUISSS McGill Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Health of Seniors/ Simone & Edouard Shouela (CEDurable), and Principal Investigator at the Bone, Muscle & Geroscience Group of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC). He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Gerontology: Biological Sciences, one of the official journals of the Gerontological Society of America.
As a Geriatrician and Clinician-Investigator, Prof. Duque has implemented several Falls and Fractures clinics (the most recent ones at the MUHC and the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal) where patients are comprehensively assessed for falls and fracture risk. His clinical trials unit conducts several trials testing the effect of pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments for age-related musculoskeletal diseases.He is the author of more than 280 peer-reviewed articles and multiple book chapters and has edited five books in the aging and musculoskeletal fields (two on osteosarcopenia).

As an assistant professor at the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) and McGill University, my research focus is on applying patient-derived stem cells towards the development of phenotypic discovery assays and 3D mini-brain models for both neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders. As group leader of the iPSC platform at the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI), I oversee a team of 30 research staff and students and growing, committed to applying novel stem cell technology, combined with CRISPR genome editing, mini-brain models and new microfluidic technologies towards elucidating the underlying causes of these complex disorders. Leading the SGC tissue platform, NeuroSGC; I oversee a team committed to assay development, in parallel with leading the establishment of NeuroCDRD, towards the automation of our open assays for small molecule screens. In addition, I am also part of antibody validation efforts between the MNI, Oxford and the Karolinska to generate CRISPR KO cell-lines for validating commercial antibodies against high-value ALS targets. Combined with new approaches in the group towards building multiomic profiles on the patient-derived IPSC cells within the group, the long-term strategy over the coming years is to identify new personalized precision therapies that can be applied towards building clinical trials on a dish.

Allen Ehrlicher is an Associate Professor in Bioengineering at McGill University. Since 2018, he is the Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Active Biological Mechanics. Trained in physics, his research team develops new methods to study the mechanics of biological materials and how these properties fail in diseases from cancer to myocardial infarction, and the stress/strain relationships in mechanosensing, particularly related to nuclear mechanics and cell differentiation. He also draws from biomechanics to design new synthetic bioinspired materials such as tough glasses that capture some of the rich dynamics and properties of biology.

Dr. Nicoletta Eliopoulos is an Investigator at the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research (LDI), Jewish General Hospital (JGH), and Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery, Division of Surgical Research, at McGill University in Montreal. She is also the Laboratory Director of the JGH Cell Processing Center, a clinical-grade cell handling facility which is committed to fostering early-phase trials testing cell-based technologies.
Dr. Eliopoulos has a B.Sc degree in Physiology from McGill University, M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Pharmacology from the Université de Montréal, and received her postdoctoral training at the LDI in the laboratory of Dr. Jacques Galipeau.
Dr. Eliopoulos is a scientist with expertise in adult stem/progenitor cells for cell and gene therapy of various diseases, such as kidney injury and cancer. Her research laboratory currently performs studies on the pre-treatment, gene-enhancement and therapeutic use of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs).

Our work is focused on understanding the process of self-renewal in hematopoietic stem cells. In particular, we are interested in deciphering the molecular regulation of self-renewal in both normal and acute myeloid leukemia stem cells (LSCs) with the aims of disrupting leukemic development and enabling expansion of normal stem cells.

Carl Ernst, is currently a professor at McGill in the departments of Human Genetics, Neuroscience, and Psychology. The goal of his work is to study human behaviour and mood by identifying genes that may be involved in mental disorders. For this work, he produces cellular models based on the functions of specific genes, and screens at-risk populations for genetic mutations, deriving stem cells from their tissues. He then assesses how neurons derived from these subjects’ stem cells differ from neurons derived from healthy patients.

Professor Dominique Farge has a long-standing commitment to the field of transplantation and stem cell therapy. She began her career as a physician and researcher in solid organ transplant where she made a number of important contributions and participated in ground breaking advancements, such as the world’s first triple transplant in cystic fibrosis. In the last 25 years she has focused on stem cell therapy in rare autoimmune diseases. She has conducted clinical and translational research, and participated in clinical activity, in hematopoietic stem cells transplantation (HSCT) and mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) therapy for autoimmune diseases. She has been involved in the development of several European guidelines for stem cell therapies: a) as a treatment for Scleroderma, b) for the use of stem cell transplantation in Autoimmune Diseases, and c) for the use of stem cell transplantation in Lupus. For the last 15 years she has worked at both French and European levels to coordinate several clinical and translational research programs on rare autoimmune diseases, including Systemic Sclerosis (SSc), Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE), severe forms of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and Crohn’s disease. She is a co-founding elected board member of the European Scleroderma Trials and Research Group (EUSTAR). She has been a member of the Autoimmune Diseases Working Party (ADWP) of the European Bone Marrow Transplant Association (EBMT) since 1998. She was nominated secretary of the ADWP in 2004 and then elected chair (voted by all EBMT members) from 2010 to 2013 and for a second mandate from 2013 to 2016. While coordinating the first clinical trials SSc (PI for PHRC for HSCT 1997, MSC 2011), SLE, MS, Diabetes and Crohn’s disease, she founded the French MATHEC (Maladies Auto Immunes et Thérapie Cellulaire) network dedicated to stem cell therapy in auto-immune disease, which has been labelled and funded as Center of Reference for Rare Autoimmune Diseases in Ile de France (2017 -2021).

Dr. Edward A. Fon is the Scientific Director of the Montreal Neurological Institute and Professor in the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at McGill University. He is a Clinician-Scientist and attending neurologist specializing in movement disorders. He is Director and co-founder of the FRQS Quebec Parkinson Network. His research focuses on the molecular events leading to the neuronal degeneration in Parkinson’s disease (PD). He is particularly interested in the function and cell biology of PD genes and has made some important contribution, published in prestigious journals. He also leads the Open Science Drug Discovery initiative at the Montreal Neurological Institute. Dr. Fon has received several awards during the course of his career including the CIHR Clinician-Scientist award, the Prix de Jeune Chercheur Blaise Pascal, a National Scholar award of the FRQS and the EJLB Foundation Scholar. He is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI). His research is currently supported by the CIHR (Foundation grant), CQDM, Brain Canada, CCNA and the Michael J. Fox Foundation.

Dr. Chan Gao obtained his medical degree from Peking University Health Science Center (Beijing, China) in 2003 and PhD from the division of Experimental Medicine, McGill University (Montreal, QC) in 2014. He completed his clinical training as a resident in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, aka Physiatry, at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (Nashville, TN) in 2019 and a clinical fellow in Primary Care Sports Medicine and Interventional Spine at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (New York, NY) in 2020.  Dr. Gao is currently appointed as Assistant Professor in the department of Medicine and Scientist at Research Institute – McGill University Health Center. Dr Gao is interested in neural regulation of musculoskeletal tissue homeostasis. His research program primarily focuses on investigating the pathogenic mechanisms underlying neurogenic heterotopic ossification and osteoporosis associated with central nervous system injuries including spinal cord injury and traumatic brain injury. Clinically relevant animal models are being developed to simulate heterotopic ossification and osteoporosis induced by spinal cord injury or traumatic brain. These preclinical models will then be used to identify potential biomarkers for early diagnosis and prophylaxis, and molecular targets for effective therapy.

Dr. Zu-hua Gao obtained his Medical degree from Qingdao Medical College, Master degree from Harbin Medical University, and PhD degree from Peking Union Medical College.  Dr. Gao received his post-doctoral fellowship training at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, pathology residency training at Dalhousie University, and subspecialty pathology fellowship at the University of Chicago. As a surgical pathologist, Dr. Gao’s clinical expertise is gastrointestinal and liver pathology. As an educator, Dr. Gao teaches undergraduate medical students pathology courses, supervises graduate students, residents, and fellows. Dr. Gao has written three textbooks: The Clinical Skills Review for medical students (3 editions), the Pathology Review and Practice Guide book for pathology residents (2 editions, translated into 4 languages) and Gross Morphology of Common Diseases.  As a research scientist, Dr. Gao research interest is on transplantation immunology and cancers of the gastrointestinal tract, especially on pancreatic cancer. Dr. Gao has published over 170 peer reviewed articles in Lancet, Nature Medicine, and peer reviewed pathology journals.  Dr. Gao received many awards including the Junior Scientist Award at CAP-ACP, the Dalhousie Medical Foundation award, the McGill University Health Center Foundation award, etc.   As an administrator, Dr. Gao had been the Division Head of Anatomical Pathology and Cytopathology at the University of Calgary and Calgary Laboratory Services between 2007-2011. Since 2012, Dr. Gao has been the Chair and Chief of the Department of Pathology at McGill University. Since 2019, Dr. Gao has been the President of Canadian Chairs of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.  In 2017, Dr. Gao became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine (London UK). In 2019, Dr. Gao became a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.

Mr. Marco Gasparrini has been with the MHITL as a technical research assistant and responsible for the quality assurance and control of the program since 2010. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Physiology at McGill University in 2008. His research focus on discovering novel therapeutic approaches to the development of beta-cells lead him to obtain a Master of Science degree in Experimental Medicine at McGill University in 2010. In 2017, he became the manager of the Human Islet Transplant Laboratory.

Dr. Rahul Gawri obtained his Ph.D. in 2014 from McGill University (Canada) and his MD in 2006 from Calcutta University (India). He has been recently recruited (2020) as an Assistant professor with Department of Surgery, McGill University. Rahul finished his post-doctoral fellowships at University of Toronto (Canada) and University of Pennsylvania (USA). During his post-doctoral trainings, he was funded by The Arthritis Society of Canada (TAS) and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). Rahul’s research focus and interests lie in the field of musculoskeletal regeneration. He has extensively worked on intervertebral discs and cartilage utilizing body’s innate regenerative mechanisms and bioactive compounds. Rahul has also worked on Mucopolysaccharidosis, a rare and orphan genetic disorder with extensive musculoskeletal involvement, investigating the involvement of articular joints in this disease and elucidating biomarkers and developing minimally invasive imaging techniques for applications in this disease. Rahul’s laboratory will investigate the role of immune cells of the body, mast cells, macrophages and neutrophils, and their effect on fracture healing. This is line with the research focus of utilizing and optimizing body’s innate regenerative mechanism(s) for achieving desired tissue engineering goals. The overall goals of the research program will be to harness and optimize the potential of immune cells towards better/faster fracture healing. The laboratory will investigate the roles of immune cells on fracture healing both in vitro and in vivo in knockout mouse models. The lab also wants to evaluate the role of bioenergetics and its manipulation for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications.

One of the extraordinary abilities of all living creatures is their capacity to repair damaged tissues following injury. This regenerative property is in large part due to the existence of stem cells that are defined by their ability to replace themselves through division, as well as giving rise to specialized cell types through a process known as differentiation. Unfortunately, once stem cells acquire mutations that cause them to proliferate incessantly, they can also fuel cancer growth. My lab focuses on the stem cells in the epithelial lining of our intestinal tract. By constantly replenishing the gut epithelium, intestinal stem cells ensure proper nutrient uptake and barrier formation against environmental toxins and pathogens throughout life. My interests lie in understanding the signals that control gut stem cell behaviour and how these signals become misregulated in diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease and colon cancer.

My laboratory is interested in the molecular and cellular mechanisms that regulate kidney, urinary tract and bladder development. We are currently studying the role of a transcription factor Osr1 which regulates progenitor cell populations in the developing mouse bladder. We are using conditional mouse knockout lines and RNA sequencing to characterize the role of Osr1 in the embryonic mouse bladder. In another related project, we have determined that Osr1 is upregulated in bladder disease after spinal cord injury. In this context, Osr1 appears to regulate a progenitor cell population in the adult mouse bladder that regulates fibroblast differentiation.

Dr. Lisbet Haglund joined McGill University, the Department of Surgery and Division of Orthopaedics in 2009 and is now full time tenured Associate Professor.
She leads a well-funded inter-disciplinary research program that develops novel approaches for diagnosis and treatment of spinal pathologies. The focus of her research program is on clinical and translational research in intervertebral disc regeneration, degeneration and pain, which impacts on the fields of spine biology, biomechanics, neurochemistry and neurogenic pain.

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Dr. Luke Healy completed a B.Sc. Neuroscience at University College of Cork (Ireland) and undertook his doctoral work at Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience in Trinity College Dublin. His Ph.D works focused on the pharmacologic effects of a new multiple sclerosis disease modifying therapy, Gilenya, on human astrocytes. During his Ph.D Dr. Healy spent a year at the Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research (Basel, Switzerland) studying the functional antagonism of a class of GPCRs, the sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor family. In 2014 Dr. Healy undertook his postdoctoral training in the laboratories of Drs. Jack Antel and Amit Bar-Or at the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) where he focused on the role of human myeloid cell populations in the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis. His work using monocyte-derived-macrophages from patient populations in addition to primary human adult microglia derived from surgically resected tissues has shed light on the molecular processes of phagocytic uptake of myelin debris by these cell types. Dr. Healy was appointed as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at the MNI in March 2018. Guided by the use of primary human microglia and microglia derived from multiple sclerosis and neurodegenerative disease patient-derived iPSCs, his group examines how human microglia can provide a link between genetic risk factors, inflammation and neurodegenerative disease associated phenotypes. With the overarching aim of understanding human microglia activation, identifying novel therapeutic targets and using pharmacological tools to shift microglia functionality, in an effort to combat chronic microglial inflammation.

Terry Hébert’s research focus is on the ontogeny, formation and trafficking of GPCR-based signalling complexes with a view toward understanding the architecture, wiring and integration of individual GPCR signalling pathways both at the cell surface and in the nucleus. Our primary focus is in the context of cardiovascular disease. He has developed new methods for in cellulo measures of protein/protein interactions and is highly involved in the development of new multiplexed signalling assays for drug discovery. The lab is now poised to exploit patient-derived iSPC lines to develop personalized understanding of disease and its treatment.

The Stem Cell Bioprocessing Laboratory works on engineering bioreactors for stem cell culture. We apply engineering approaches to design, optimize and scale up stem cell production systems. We are currently investigating the effects of various biomaterials and 3D culture on pluripotent stem cell differentiation into pancreatic cells as well as vascular endothelial cells. The main areas of applications of our research are diabetes cellular therapy and the development of vascular substitutes to treat cardiovascular disease.

Richard B. Hovey, BEd, MA, PhD, is an associate professor with the Faculty of Dentistry, McGill University. Richard research utilizes philosophical hermeneutics and phenomenology to concentrate on bridging gaps among theories, philosophies and practices in healthcare, communities and individuals. Topics of interest include chronic disease / pain, patient and health professional education, communication, leadership, interdisciplinary team building, Indigenous people’s health through Two-Eyed Seeing.

Dr. Wei-Hsiang Huang received is Ph.D. in Developmental Biology from Baylor College of Medicine under the guidance of Dr. Huda Zoghbi, and pursued his postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University with Dr. Liqun Luo. Dr. Huang joined McGill as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery in August 2019. Research in the Huang laboratory focuses on understanding the molecular, synaptic, circuit, and behavioral mechanisms of neurodevelopmental disorders, with a focus on how autism-causing genes affect the adult born neural stem cells. The Huang lab is also interested in using iPSC to study neurodevelopmental disorders. The ultimate goal for Dr. Huang’s research program is to identify therapeutic targets to improve the quality of life for patients suffer from autism, epilepsy, and other neurodevelopmental disorders.

Dr Hudson is a rheumatologist and epidemiologist at the Jewish General Hospital and Lady Davis Institute, and an Associate professor and Member of the Division of Experimental Medicine in the Department of Medicine at McGill. She pursues research in systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases. She is a founding member of the Canadian Scleroderma Research Group (CSRG) and the Canadian Inflammatory Myopathy Study (CIMS). She has worked on a broad range of projects, including on renal crisis, interstitial lung disease, and novel autoantibodies. She has now turned to the study of scleromyositis, which lies at the intersection of her interests in scleroderma and myositis. She has also developed an interest in cellular therapies for scleroderma and is conducting a CIHR-funded Phase I/II randomized controlled trial of mesenchymal stromal cells for severe scleroderma. Dr Hudson is also Co-Director of the McGill Interdisciplinary Initiative in Infection and Immunity which, since 2018, has provided over $40 million to support 130+ innovative research projects aimed at the prevention, cure and elimination of major infectious and immune threats to human health.

Dr. Nada Jabado is a Professor of Pediatrics at McGill University and a pediatric neuro-oncologist at the Montreal Children’s Hospital. She completed her residency in pediatrics with a specialization in hemato-oncology and obtained a PhD in Immunology. She pioneered a research program in pediatric brain tumors at McGill where her group identified a new molecular mechanism driving pediatric high grade astrocytomas, namely recurrent somatic driver mutations in the tail of histone 3 variants (H3.3 and H3.1), which has created a paradigm shift in cancer with the identification of histone mutations in human disease.

Dr. Jabado has over 200 peer-reviewed publications in such prominent journals as Nature, Science and Cell with over 26,000 citations. Dr. Jabado is one of the best-funded investigators in Canada and has been inducted as a Fellow to the Royal Society of Canada and holds a Canada Research Chair in Pediatric Oncology.

The main goals of research in the Jahani Lab are to identify the molecular mechanisms that underlie the pathogenesis of brain tumor. In particular, the studies are focused on adult glioblastoma, a cancer of the brain for which, presently, there is no cure. Dr. Jahani is addressing how these tumors form and grow. She is using human brain tumor stem cells as well as mouse neural stem cells together with a combination of molecular and cell biology techniques and imaging to identify the fundamental principles and mechanisms that drives the tumorigeneic property of these tumor cells. These studies provide key steps towards understanding of key regulators of glioblastoma and how to target these key players in the cancerous brain.

Dr. Sabah Hussain received his MD degree from the Medical School, University of Baghdad (Iraq) in 1978. After serving four years of medical service in various hospitals in Baghdad, he joined the Meakins Christie Laboratories, Department of Medicine, McGill University (Montreal, Canada) as a graduate student and a research fellow. In 1979, he obtained his Doctorate of Philosophy from the Department of Physiology, McGill University. He was then appointed as Assistant Professor of Medicine, Department of Medicine in 1990 and as Associate Professor and full Professor in that department in 1996 and 2004, respectively. In 1999, Dr. Hussain was also appointed as the Medical Director of the pulmonary function laboratories at McGill University Health Centre where he sees various patients with respiratory diseases.  Dr. Hussain’s research interests are focused on the pathophysiology and therapeutics of respiratory and musculoskeletal diseases. He has published more than 180 original research papers in various biomedical journals. He also had un-interrupted peer-reviewed research funding in terms of salary awards and operating grants from various Canadian and international funding agencies. Finally, Dr. Hussain supervised forty-seven graduate students, post-doctoral and clinical research fellows and many of his students are currently independent investigators in European and North American institutions.

Yann Joly, Ph.D. (DCL), FCAHS, Ad.E. is the Research Director of the Centre of Genomics and Policy (CGP). He is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, Department of Human Genetics cross-appointed at the Bioethics Unit, at McGill University. He was named advocatus emeritus by the Quebec Bar in 2012 and Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences in 2017.
Prof. Joly’s research interests lie at the interface of the fields of scientific knowledge, health law (biotechnology and other emerging health technologies) and bioethics. He created the first international genetic discrimination observatory (GDO https://gdo.global/en/gdo-description) in 2018. He has published his findings in over 150 peer-reviewed articles featured in top legal, ethical and scientific journals. He served as a legal advisor on multiple research ethics committees in the public and private sectors. Prof. Joly also sits on editorial committees and acts as a reviewer for a wide range of publications in his field. In 2012, he received the Quebec Bar Award of Merit (Innovation) for his work on the right to privacy in the biomedical field.

David Juncker, PhD, is a Full Professor and Chair of Biomedical Engineering at McGill University, and holds a Canadian Research Chair in Bioengineering. He leads the Micro and Nano-bioengineering lab that develops new technologies for multimodal biomarker discovery, including multiplex protein analysis, capture of circulating tumor cells and clusters, and single exosome analysis. David’s current interests are in the miniaturization and integration in biology and medicine, which includes the engineering and utilization of novel micro and nanotechnologies for manipulating, stimulating and studying oligonucleotides, proteins, cells, and tissues. The emerging field of nanobiotechnology, in a broad sense, is the most exciting to David, and is also key to tackle some of the major challenges in biology and medicine, for example identifying novel biomarkers for early disease diagnosis and developing low-cost point-of-care diagnostics. He has 78 publications and his work has been cited over 4645 times, with H-index 31 since 2001. He has 8 patents filed since 2014. Inventions from his research group have led to 3 active spin-offs.

Dr. Kaartinen is an Associate professor at McGill University in the Faculties of Dentistry (Division of Biomedical Sciences) and Medicine (Division of Experimental Medicine, Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology). She has an MSc degree in Organic Chemistry from University of Jyvaskyla, Finland, and a PhD-degree (1999) in Biochemistry from the Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology in University of Kuopio, Finland (currently University of Eastern Finland). She completed her postdoctoral training in bone and extracellular matrix biology in the Faculties of Medicine and Dentistry at McGill University, and joined McGill University as an Assistant Professor in 2002 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2009. She has acted as Director of Biomedical Sciences in the Faculty of Dentistry and is interested in promoting critical thinking and academic integrity. Dr. Kaartinen has worked on transglutaminases, their substrates and roles in cellular differentiation for over 20 years and acted as the Chair of Gordon Research Conference on Transglutaminases in Human Disease Processes in 2018. She is a member of the Editorial Board for Cell Death and Disease.

Amine Kamen is Professor of Bioengineering at McGill University, and Canada Research Chair in Bioprocessing of Viral Vaccines. He is Researcher Emeritus of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) where he was employed until early 2014, as head of the Process Development section of the Human Health Therapeutics Portfolio. At NRC, he established one of the North America largest and most advanced governmental center for animal cell culture addressing process development and scale up of biologics. Also, he developed with his team and licensed to industry multiple technology platforms for efficient manufacturing of recombinant proteins and viral vectors and vaccines and led technology transfer to manufacturing sites for clinical evaluation and commercialization.
His current research activities focus on uncovering mechanisms associated with cell production of viral vectors and viral vaccines; cell and metabolic engineering; process control and monitoring; and process analytical technologies of high yield productions of viral vectors for gene delivery and vaccination. He published over one hundred and fifty papers in refereed international journals and acts as consultant for several national and international private and public organizations.

Jonathan Kimmelman, PhD, is James McGill Professor of Biomedical Ethics at McGill University, and directs the Biomedical Ethics Unit as well as his own research group, STREAM (Studies in Translation, Ethics and Medicine). Kimmelman’s research centers on ethical, policy, and scientific dimensions of clinical development. In addition to his book, Gene Transfer and the Ethics of First-in-Human Experiments (Cambridge Press, 2010), major publications have appeared in Science, JAMA, BMJ, and Hastings Center Report. Kimmelman received the Maud Menten New Investigator Prize (2006), a CIHR New Investigator Award (2008), a Humboldt Bessel Award (2014), and was elected a Hastings Center Fellow (2018). He has sat on various advisory bodies within the U.S. NHLBI and NIAID, served for four tours of duty on U.S. National Academies of Medicine committees, and chaired the International Society of Stem Cell Research Guidelines for Stem Cell Research and Clinical Translation revision task force 2015-16. His research has been covered in major media outlets, including NPR’s All Things Considered, STATNews, and Nature. Kimmelman is deputy editor at Clinical Trials, and serves as an associate editor at PLoS Biology.

The focus of our research is to understand how immune cells communicate with their local environment to promote protective immune responses relevant to human disease. We are particularly interested in immunity at barrier sites such as the gut, skin and lung as these tissues face the complex task of maintaining homeostasis while directly interacting with the outside world.
Ongoing studies include:

• The molecular mechanisms of CD4+ T cell differentiation following intestinal helminth infection.
• The gut-lung axis in the context of infectious disease
• Innate immune mechanisms of disease tolerance during intestinal helminth infection.
• Regulation of skin-resident IL-17-producing T cells in the context of psoriatic-like inflammation.
• The impact of the microbiome on infection and inflammatory bowel diseases.

J. Matt Kinsella is an Associate Professor of Bioengineering at McGill University. The Kinsella lab investigates developing bioprinted tissue-engineered in vitro disease models of tumors using patient-derived materials. We are using these bioprinted platforms to explore fundamental disease pathways that may instruct multiscale systems-engineering treatment approaches integrating nanomedicine, tissue engineering, and bioprinting.

Erika Kleiderman is a lawyer and an Academic Associate at the Centre of Genomics and Policy at McGill University. Her research deals with the ethical, legal, and social implications surrounding access to data and genetic information, biobanking, and the regulation of stem cells, regenerative medicine, and new reproductive technologies. Erika is involved with the Stem Cell Network’s Trainee Communications and Training & Education Committees, as well as the coordinator of the pan-Canadian initiative aimed at assessing the adequacy of existing regulatory frameworks and considerations for reframing the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, in light of evolving reproductive technologies. She is also the Coordinator of the Canadian International Data Sharing Initiative (Can-SHARE) and the Access Officer of the Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow Project (CPTP). Erika’s interests expand to the potential implications of gene therapy / enhancement in minors within a sporting context.

Dr Kleinman’s research exploits genome-wide technologies and data science to understand mechanisms of gene expression. She has an interdisciplinary training that combines molecular biology, computer science, statistics and evolutionary biology, which she applies to the study of pathological transcriptional and RNA processing events, focusing particularly on cancer and brain development. She has developed and implemented methods for RNA editing and other chemical modifications, alternative splicing, non-coding RNA regulation, and integration with epigenomic data. Recently, her lab has specialized on single-cell transcriptomic technologies to resolve cell-to-cell variation. They have used these tools to define the cell of origin of several brain tumors, and to identify rare cells driving cancer progression. They are now applying them to study key aspects of cancer biology.

Bartha Maria Knoppers, PhD (Comparative Medical Law), is a Full Professor, Canada Research Chair in Law and Medicine and Director of the Centre of Genomics and Policy of the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University. Since 2005, she has led the Policy Committee of the Canadian Stem Cell Network and chaired the Ethics Working Party of the International Stem Cell Forum (2005-2015). Additionally, she was the founder of the Public Population Project in Genomics (P3G) and CARTaGENE Quebec’s population biobank. She was the Chair of the Ethics and Governance Committee of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (2009-2017), is currently Chair of the Ethics Advisory Panel of WADA (2015- ), and was the Co-Chair of the Regulatory and Ethics Workstream of the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) (2013-2019). In 2015-2016, she was a member of the Drafting Group for the Recommendation of the OECD Council on Health Data Governance and gave the Galton Lecture in November 2017. She holds four Doctorates Honoris Causa and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Hastings Center (bioethics), the Canadian Academy Health Sciences (CAHS), and the Royal Society of Canada (RSC). She is also an Officer of the Order of Canada and of Quebec, and was awarded the 2019 Henry G. Friesen International Prize in Health Research, the Till and McCulloch Award for science policy (2020) and served on the International Commission on the Clinical Use of Human Germline Genome Editing. Currently, she serves on Canada’s Vaccine Task Force, Health Data Strategy Expert Advisory Group, CanCOGen’s HostSeq project and the COVID Cloud (DNAstack).

Dr. Koromilas is full-time Professor in the Department of Oncology, Faculty of Medicine, McGill University and Senior Scientist at Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research-Sir Mortimer B. Davis Jewish General Hospital. Dr. Koromilas is an Associate Member of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and Rosalind and Morris Goodman Cancer Center of McGill. Dr. Koromilas’ research interests focus on the molecular mechanisms of protein synthesis and their implications in cancer metabolism, cachexia, and treatment with chemotherapeutic drugs. Using mouse models of lung and beast cancer Dr. Koromilas studies the tumor intrinsic and immune mediated mechanisms employed by a new generation of protein synthesis inhibitors to combat these deadly forms of cancer.

Roberta La Piana is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology & Neurosurgery at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Associate Member of the Department of Diagnostic Radiology at McGill University. She earned her MD at University of Pavia, Italy, and she then specialized in Pediatric Neurology and Psychiatry at the same University.  She completed her PhD in Neuroscience at McGill University. Dr. La Piana’s interdisciplinary profile combines the expertise in neuroradiology and genetics with her clinical background.

She has been working on hereditary myelin disorders for more than ten years and she contributed to the MRI-pattern definition of pediatric genetic leukoencephalopathies such as Aicardi-Goutieres Syndrome and POL3R-related disorders.

At The Neuro, Dr. La Piana’s primary area of research examines late-onset undiagnosed forms of leukoencephalopathies. This research focusses on applying MRI pattern-recognition to define and characterize genetic white-matter diseases; to identify genes responsible for new forms of adult hereditary white-matter disorders using next-generation sequencing techniques; and to understand the clinical and MRI overlap between atypical multiple sclerosis and genetic leukoencephalopathies. She is also interested in investigating the white matter involvement of rare neurological disorders such as hereditary spastic paraparesis and cerebellar ataxias.

In 2013 she launched the White Matter Rounds with the goal to discuss undiagnosed and atypical cases of white matter diseases. These interdisciplinary monthly meetings have evolved into an international network including researchers and clinicians from Canada, US and Europe.

Systemic metabolic alterations associated with increased consumption of saturated fat and obesity are linked with increased risk of prostate cancer progression and mortality, but the molecular underpinnings of this association are poorly understood. My research program is aimed at understanding the combination of key tumour genetic alterations together with the host characteristics required for diet to alter prostate cancer progression. This will allow the identification of new therapeutic targets and the elaboration of novel therapeutic approaches devised to treat prostate cancer patients at risk of progression to an aggressive, lethal disease. More specifically, my research focuses on the mechanisms and therapeutic targets related to epigenetic alterations and uses murine and human cell lines, animal models (including genetically engineered mouse models) and human tissues.

Dr. Langlais is an Assistant Professor in Human Genetics, Associate Member of the Dept Microbiology and Immunology, and Principal Investigator at the McGill Institute of Genomic Medicine. Dr Langlais completed his Ph.D. with honours in Molecular Biology under the supervision of Dr. Jacques Drouin at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal. His work revealed the complex transcriptional regulation and tissue maintenance mechanisms at the immuno-neuroendocrine interface. Dr Langlais then pursued postdoctoral research in Dr Philippe Gros’ laboratory at McGill University where he studied the role of critical innate immunity transcription factors and participated in the characterization of new genes involved in immune function and neuroinflammatory conditions. Dr. Langlais has received multiple awards and fellowships, including the Milstein Young Investigator Award from the International Cytokine and Interferon Society, and the Top 10 Discovery of 2018 by Québec Science. His laboratory uses and develops functional genomics methods in model organisms and humans to study the role of transcriptional and epigenetic regulators in normal and pathological inflammatory responses and hematopoietic development.

Dr. Jianyu Li is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, an Associate Member of Biomedical Engineering Department at McGill University. His research interests include biomaterials, mechanics, soft machines, drug delivery, cellular and tissue engineering.

My work involves the investigation of laryngeal tissue regeneration by manipulating the behavior of vocal fold fibroblasts, which are recently found to display cell surface markers and multipotent differentiation characteristics as of mesenchymal stem cells. A combined wet lab and computational approach is used to understand and predict the complex response of the cells in response to chemical and mechanical environment.

Our lab is interested in understanding how individual cells process information to make specific cellfate decisions, using pluripotent stem cells as a model system. Our current focus involves delineating the transcriptional and signalling mechanisms regulating the establishment, maintenance and exit of pluripotent and totipotent stem cell states. Both our research and team are multi-disciplinary consisting of cell biology, biochemistry, mathematics and physics. We commonly utilize single-cell quantitative methods (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and imaging), with computational biology and mathematical modelling. Dr. Malleshaiah is an Adjunct Member at the McGill Experimental Medicine, and Assistant Research Professor at the Montréal Clinical research Institute (IRCM) and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine, Université de Montréal.

Dr Martin’s research has been focused on the use of animal and cellular models to explore the pathobiological basis of asthma. He has characterized both allergic and non-allergic models and the involvement of cysteinyl leukotrienes in the processes of tissue repair and the consequent airway remodeling. The role of CD4 T cells in the hyperplastic growth of airway smooth muscle has been a particular focus.

Dr. Marc D. McKee is a full professor at McGill University in Montreal with a joint appointment in the Faculties of Dentistry and Medicine. He received his B.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from McGill University in cell biology, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Harvard University and The Children’s Hospital in Boston. He then held academic appointments at the Forsyth Institute in Boston (1989), and at the University of Montreal (1990), after which he moved to McGill University in 1998.

Research in Dr. McKee’s laboratory is primarily focused on mineralization (calcification) of extracellular matrices in bones and teeth, in mineralization pathologies, and in other biomineralizing systems such as inner-ear otoconia and eggshells. In particular, in addition to characterizing mineralization patterns in various tissues, he is investigating the role of mineral-binding proteins, peptides, amino acids, and small molecules – most notably a protein called osteopontin – and the enzymes that modify these biomolecules to influence their mineralization-regulating activities. His studies on pathologic mineralization include work on rare bone diseases where skeletal and dental mineralization is defective (osteomalacia / odontomalacia), and bones and teeth are soft and deform. His work also includes investigating the actions of regulatory molecules where unwanted and debilitating mineral deposition occurs in soft tissues such as in the kidney (urolithiasis, kidney stones), in blood vessels (vascular calcification), and in tendon and ligament insertions (entheses).

Luc Mongeau is Professor of Mechanical Engineering at McGill University.  He obtained his B.Eng. and M. Eng. Degrees from the University of Montreal at Ecole Polytechnique in 1884 and 1986.  He received a Ph.D. In Acoustics from the Pennsylvania State University in 1991. After working for two years as postdoctoral member of technical staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories, he joined the School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University.  There he worked as Assistant, Associate, and Full Professor at the Ray W. Herrick Laboratories in Noise and Vibration Control and in Biomechanics.  He has joined McGill in 2006 and has been engaged in research on the biomechanics of voice production, biomaterials for tissue regeneration, computational and physical models of drug delivery, wound healing, and cell motility. He is a Tier I Canada Research Chair, a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, and a member of ASME, SAE, AIAA, CSB, ESB, ASEE, and other societies. Many graduate students have worked under his supervision and are now employed in academia and industry. He has published over 120 archival journal publications in over 40 different journals.

The Moraes lab develops high-throughput microengineered systems to study the role of the stem cell microenvironment on differentiation and development processes. These approaches combine biomaterial design, tissue engineering, and advanced optical imaging techniques to enable high-throughput, high-content and high-precision analysis of cell-matrix interactions.

Dr. Fackson Mwale is a Tenured Professor in the Dept. of Surgery at McGill University. He is also a senior investigator at the Lady Davis Institute, past president of the Canadian Orthopaedic Research Society (CORS), Co-Founder of Trepso Therapeutics and Intervertech. His interests are tissue engineering of intervertebral discs and cartilage.
Dr. Mwale received his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina, followed by a Post Doctoral fellowship at McGill University. His studies have uncovered fundamental roles of Link N as a therapeutic agent for intervertebral discs and cartilage repair as well as the calcium-sensing receptor in the pathogenesis of osteoarthritis and intervertebral discs.
Dr. Mwale has published over 100 papers in professional journals. He is a member of and has held leadership positions in several professional organizations, including the Spine Research Community (as one of the founders), and serves or has served on the editorial boards of several major journals, including European Cells and Material, JOR Spine. He currently serves as a grant reviewer at the CIHR and NIH study sections. He served as a member of the Skeletal Biology Structure and Regeneration [SBSR] study section from 2013 to 2017. He was recently invited to serve again but this time as a member of the Musculoskeletal Tissue Engineering Study Section, Center for Scientific Review, for the term beginning July 01, 2018 and ending June 30, 2024.

Stem cells exhibit enhanced repair of multiple forms of DNA damage. One mechanism that enables cancer cells to resist radiotherapy and chemotherapy is the efficient repair of DNA damage, as observed in tumor initiating cells that exhibit stem cell properties. My group currently investigates how alterations in DNA repair and DNA damage responses contribute to the initiation and progression of cancer, how certain cancer cells become dependent on auxiliary factors of the base excision repair pathway, and how efficient base excision repair can enable cancer cells to resist radiotherapy and chemotherapy. One goal is to identify « druggable » biochemical activities that are essential to cancer cells, but dispensable to normal cells, in order to develop novel therapeutics that will sensitize cancer cells to treatments while causing no or minimal adverse effects. We have identified a number of transcription factors that function as auxiliary factors in base excision repair. These factors are expressed in specific stem cells and sometimes become aberrantly re-expressed in cancer cells.

The term, “stem cell”, first emerged in 1868 in context of evolution and fertilization/ embryogenesis while the history of germline stem cells starts in 1885. McGill has a strong background in stem cell research, pioneered by Dr. Charles Leblond, particularly for male germline stem cells, also called spermatogonial stem cells (SSC). Following this McGill tradition, my research focuses on biology and applications of SSCs for male fertility preservation and restoration in childhood cancer patients. I started the SSC research in 1995 with Ralph L. Brinster at the University of Pennsylvania and have contributed to establishing the foundation of SSC research, including developing the transplantation assay, SSC culture system, xenotransplantation of primate and human SSCS, and animal transgenesis through genetic modifications of SSCs, defining the homing efficiency of SSCs after transplantation and the absolute number of SSCs, establishing an in-vitro SSC detection assay, revealing SSC aging, and demonstrating the involvement of Wnt signaling in SSC fate control. Currently, we are working on purification and molecular characterization of mouse and human SSCs, development of novel compounds that improve the efficiency of SSC homing, and establishment of human SSC culture systems in the two-dimensional and microfluidics formats.

Anastasia Nijnik (Nyzhnyk) is a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Hematopoiesis and Lymphocyte Differentiation, and since 2011 an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physiology and a member of the McGill Complex Traits Group. Her research program studies the biology of hematopoietic stem cells, including epigenetic regulation of gene expression, genetic stability and leukocyte differentiation, using transgenic mouse models. Specifically the current program is focused on the chromatin-binding deubiquitinase MYSM1 and its activities in transcriptional regulation and DNA damage response signalling in hematopoiesis.

Dr. Nazhat’s research interests center on engineered 3D dense collagen gel-based tissue models and their interactions with seeded cells, including investigating the effects of bioinorganics, controllably released from soluble and bioactive glasses, impacting osteogenesis, angiogenesis, and wound healing.

Dr. Paraskevas is currently Associate Professor of Surgery, Director of the Pancreas and Islet Transplant Program and Director of the Human Islet Transplantation Laboratory. Dr. Paraskevas’ research interests include the study of beta-cell injury and cell survival and how cell injury induces the recipient’s immune response. He is working with collaborators on novel agents for promotion of beta-cell survival as well as measures to improve islet engraftment and function.

Dr. William Pastor has been an assistant professor at the Department of Biochemistry at McGill University since January 2018. His lab uses stem cell models to study transcriptional and epigenetic regulation during human developmental processes. Dr. Pastor’s current projects are 1) Studying transcriptional control of placental stem cell specification and homeostasis 2) Determining how DNA methyltransferases are regulated during early embryogenesis.

In collaboration with Dr Pierre Laneuville, our laboratory is specialised in cord blood unit (CBU) processing and cryopreservation for laboratory and clinical research. We focus on maximising use of cord blood stem cells and cord tissue mesenchymal stem cells from donations rejected by public banks. Our priority is to better understand the role of the purified CD34+ cells in CBU pooling and in the simplification of the pooling method to make multicentre research protocols. Future laboratory and clinical studies will focus on cord tissue mesenchymal stem cells for cellular therapy and regenerative medicine.

My research focuses on understanding the role of TGF-beta signaling in wound healing and scarring in the skin, and in the maintenance and repair of cartilage. In the cartilage, our studies center on understanding how the functional interplay between TGF-beta receptors and co-receptors regulates chondrocyte phenotype and function, in healthy and osteoarthritic cartilage. Our research on skin focuses on TGF-beta co-receptors as regulators of TGF-beta signaling in skin cells. We have recently shown that CD109, a novel TGF-beta co-receptor that we have identified in skin cells, inhibits TGF-beta signaling and displays potent anti-fibrotic properties in vitro and in vivo. One of our major objectives is to develop CD109-based peptides as TGF-b antagonists and anti-fibrotic agents for the treatment of pathological conditions such as hypertrophic scarring and scleroderma. Research in my laboratory is funded by the Canadian Institute for Health Research (CIHR), NSERC and United States Department of Defense.

Dr. Piccirillo is Professor in the Departments of Microbiology and Immunology, and Medicine of McGill University. He is the Director of the Centre of Excellence in Translational Immunology (CETI) at McGill and MUHC, and the nominated Leader for the Translational Immunology theme in the Program in Infectious Diseases and Immunity in Global Health (IDIGH). He is Senior Scientist and Principal Investigator of the IDIGH Laboratory of Immunoregulation. Finally, he the Director of the ImmunoPhenotyping Platform for the RI-MUHC, a state-of-the-art technological core providing expert advice and training in multi-parametric flow cytometry and cell sorting.
Dr. Piccirillo leads an internationally recognized research program which focuses on the immune regulation of autoimmune, infectious and inflammatory diseases. His research tries to harness the power of the immune system to boost, stop or restore T cell function in autoimmune/inflammatory diseases, cancers or immunodeficiencies, respectively. His research is responsible for many seminal and pioneering studies in a variety of animal models, non-human primates and humans. His current research program makes use of a variety of mouse models and in human subjects to monitor and characterize the development and functional dynamics of T cell function in health and disease. His research program also focuses on the development of novel immunotherapeutic strategies to monitor and manipulate Foxp3+ Treg cell function and ultimately modulate immune responses in infectious, autoimmune and inflammatory disorders.

Dr. Reinhardt was recruited in 2004 as an Associate Professor to McGill University with a cross-appointment between the Dept. of Anatomy and Cell Biology of the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Dentistry. Since 2011, he is a Full Professor at McGill University exploring how cells form, maintain and functionally interact with extracellular matrices in the cardiovasculature, bone, skin, and the eye. Mutations in extracellular components of these tissues cause human hereditable connective tissue disorders. His goal is to identify fundamental mechanisms, and new strategies to diagnose, monitor and treat these disorders. Since 2006, Dr. Reinhardt holds a Canada Research Chair Tier 1 Award in Cell-Matrix Biology, which was renewed in 2013. He is a founding member of the Canadian Connective Tissue Society and has active roles in several other international scholarly societies.

Bernard Robaire received his B.A from UCLA and his Ph.D. from McGill University. After a postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University, he returned to McGill to take up a joint appointment in the Departments of Pharmacology & Therapeutics and of Obstetrics & Gynaecology where he has remained and is currently a James McGill Professor. Dr. Robaire’s research interests focus on aging of the male reproductive system, spermatogonial stem cells, male-mediated reproductive toxicology, mechanisms of androgen actions, and the structure, function, and regulation of the epididymis. This research activity has resulted in over 230 journal articles, 70 book chapters, and editing/co-editing of 10 books. He conceived and has been co-Editor of both editions of the Handbook of Andrology. He has mentored many graduate students (30 PhDs, 10 MSc) and over 20 Postdoctoral Fellows, most of whom have gone on to have successful careers in academia, industry and government. His team’s work has been funded by the CIHR/MRC continuously since he opened his lab as well as by the NIH, March of Dimes, FRQNT, FRQS, and the private sector. He has served on peer review committees for numerous agencies including NIH, CIHR, CAAT, FRQNT, FRQS and has been an active member of the Advisory Board of CIHR’s IHDCYH. Honors awarded to Dr. Robaire during his career include the Award for Excellence in Reproduction from the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society (CFAS) and the Distinguished Academic Award of the CAUT. He received both of the highest recognitions from the American Society of Andrology (ASA): the Distinguished Service Award and the Distinguished Andrologist Award. Over the last few years, he was awarded the R. Howard Webster Foundation Award in Reproductive Medicine, the Prix du Mentor Scientifique (CRCQ), the Prix Guy Rochon (FQPPU), the Gabriel Plaa Award of Distinction of the Canadian Society of Toxicology. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. He has served as President of ASA, CFAS, ACFAS, MAUT and the International Epididymis Symposium; he is currently Chair of the North American Testis Workshop Executive. He has served as both Associate Editor and then Co-Editor-in-Chief of Biology of Reproduction and as Associate Editor of Andrology; he is currently Consulting Editor for Biology of Reproduction.

Dr. Derek Rosenzweig received his Ph.D. in 2008 in Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology (G protein signalling in retina) at University of Miami in Florida. He pursued his postdoctoral fellowship in tissue engineering/mechanobiology approaches to cartilage repair at McGill with Tom Quinn in Department of Chemical Engineering and then in biomaterials approaches to intervertebral disc repair with Lisbet Haglund in Orthopaedic Surgery at McGill. He was a Research Associate with McGill Scoliosis and Spine group for 2 years focusing on 3D printing for soft tissue and bone repair. He became an Assistant Professor in Experimental Surgery at McGill in July 2017. His multidisciplinary research program combines materials science, engineering, bioengineering, surgical oncology and cell biology approaches for biofabrication and 3D printing scaffolds for anti-cancer therapeutic delivery. These devices are intended for tissue repair and regeneration following tumor resection and/or bone trauma. He also focuses on modeling the human bone tumor microenvironment using lab-on-a-chip bioprinting technology. The lab uses clinically relevant patient derived bone metastases cells arising from breast, lung and prostate cancer.

Funding from Research Institute McGill University Health Centre, Canadian Cancer Research Society, MITACs and Le Réseau de recherche en santé buccodentaire et osseuse (RSBO).

Dr. Sampalis is founder and CEO of JSS Medical Research founded in 1997. He is a Tenured Professor of Surgery and Epidemiology at McGill University & University of Montreal and Laval, and is recognized as one of Canada’s leading epidemiologists, as well as the top trauma researcher. His research objectives include: to develop research projects that will guide the evolution of trauma care and to incorporate clinical and patient outcomes as well as economic evaluation in trauma care research.

Giada Sebastiani is a Hepatologist and Clinician Scientist at McGill University Health Centre in Montreal. Her work focuses on fatty liver, liver fibrosis and non-invasive diagnostic tools and biomarkers, with a focus on screening at-risk populations. She is author of 115 articles in peer-reviewed journals (including Gastroenterology, Hepatology, Journal of Hepatology, Clinical Infectious Diseases; h-index=37, total citations>5,000), 16 book chapters, 180 conference publications. She is founding and steering committee member of the Canadian NASH Network and panel member in the Consensus on Models of Care in NAFLD of the International Liver Foundation. She was the Chair of the 1^st International Workshop of the Canadian NASH Network in 2021, a joint event with the Single Topic Conference of the CASL. Her research program is funded by the Canadian Institute for Health Research, the Fonds Recherche Sante Quebec, the Canadian Donation and Transplantation Research Program, The CIHR Canadian HIV Trials Network.

Dr. Senger is a Senior Investigator at the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, an Associate Professor in the Gerald Bronfman Department of Oncology in Faculty of Medicine at McGill University and a founding scientist of Arch Cancer Therapeutics, a subsidiary of Arch Biopartners. Dr. Senger has had a long-standing interest in brain development and tumorigenesis in both pediatric and adult tumors with investigations focusing on the molecular characteristics of invasive glioma, the therapeutic targeting of cancer stem cells and assessment of innate immune cells and their role in tumor progression. More recently, Dr. Senger’s research has focused on identification and implementation of therapeutics for the development of organ-specific cancer metastasis. Dr. Senger has an established record of taking some of the discoveries from the bench to the clinic and holds several patents including for the development of brain tumor-targeting peptides and an organ-specific endothelial targeting peptide that has completed a Phase I safety trial and a Phase II study in hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
Dr. Senger has also established a preclinical in vivo drug-screening core and a “live” pediatric tumor bank that focuses on the establishment of pediatric patient-derived xenografts from rare cancers with a specific focus in the area of brain tumors and sarcomas. An example of activities associated with the core includes participation as a preclinical-modeling site for PROFYLE, a pan-Canadian TFRI-funded precision medicine initiative for young people.

Dr. Sharif’s lab is interested in understanding the molecular bases of mechanotransduction, and the role of mechanosensory neurons in normal and pathological pain transmission. There are three main themes: 1) the identification of the genes encoding mechanosensitive ion channels (MSCs) in mammals. 2) Defining the role of MSCs in physiology and pathophysiological conditions 3) Defining the neuronal circuits in the spinal cord and how changes in the function of these networks changes in the setting of chronic pain.

My laboratory combines basic electrophysiology with molecular biology and advanced imaging techniques to study the mechanisms underlying the Long QT syndrome and sudden cardiac death. Patch-clamp methods are used to record ionic currents from stable cell lines and cells isolated from cardiomyocytes. This is coupled with molecular methods that allow us to mutate or tag the ion channels for biophysical studies and for studies of protein trafficking, stability, and internalization. We also use these approaches to screen compounds that can rescue the mutant phenotype. We visualize these proteins using confocal microscopy and monitor the functional activity by imaging monolayer cultures using voltage dye and dye-free imaging coupled with optogenetics.

Jesper Sjöström is associate professor in neuroscience at McGill University, where his team explores plasticity in the brain using 2-photon imaging, quadruple patching, optogenetics, and computer modelling. After an MSc in molecular biotechnology at Uppsala University in 1996, he obtained a PhD in neuroscience at Brandeis University in 2003. Following four years of postdoctoral studies at University College London, he remained as an MRC CDF awardee running his own lab. After arriving at McGill in 2011, he received the CIHR New Investigator and the FRQS Chercheur-Boursier awards. His research has unveiled plasticity learning rules, neocortical connectivity patterns, and unorthodox forms of NMDA receptor signalling. He is chief editor of Frontiers in Synaptic Neuroscience.

Benjamin Smith is a scientist and respiratory physician at the McGill University Health Centre and an associate professor in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. His research program seeks to understand and target the origins of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) using clinical and translational research methods. COPD is a leading cause of death and disability in Canada and worldwide. COPD pathology is characterized by destroyed acinar units that result from failure of progenitor cells to maintain homeostasis in the face of chronic exposure to noxious aerosols (e.g., tobacco smoke, air pollutants). Harnessing the regenerative capacity of readily accessible lung progenitor cells has the potential to reverse COPD through rigorous clinical and translational research.

My research program is focused on uncovering the epigenetic and transcriptional machinery that regulates stem cell self-renewal and differentiation using skeletal muscle regeneration as a model. Loss of stem cell or their diminished function underlies numerous muscle-wasting diseases. We are interested in identifying relevant molecular pathways that can be targeted by specific drugs to boost muscle stem cell self-renewal and expansion as a therapeutic strategy to treat muscle wasting-diseases.

Dr. Sonenberg studies the molecular basis of the control of protein synthesis in eukaryotic cells and its importance in diseases such as cancer, obesity, diabetes and neurological diseases. His research focuses primarily on the elucidation of the mechanism of translation initiation in eukaryotes and its regulation during development, differentiation and neoplasia. Dr. Sonenberg carried out pioneering and fundamental work that laid the basis for the understanding of how translation initiation factors promote ribosome binding, and the regulation of initiation factor activity by extracellular stimuli (growth factors, hormones, G-protein-coupled receptor agonists, cytokines and mitogens), and viruses. He made seminal discoveries demonstrating that control of translation initiation is implicated in cancer, learning and memory, autism and fragile X-syndrome.

My integrated research program is aimed at identifying, characterizing, and validating targets for pharmacological intervention and development of rational, effective novel therapeutics for bone regenerative medicine. We use a cohesive approach with biochemistry, molecular and cell biology, mouse molecular genetics and preclinical science to cover the full bench-to-bedside spectrum: target identification and characterization, high-throughput screening of small molecules for drug development, and validation of lead compounds.

A critical step in the development of novel treatments is the identification and characterization of valid targets. To this end, my laboratory has cloned and exhaustively characterized the transcriptional repressor FIAT (Factor Inhibiting ATF4-mediated Transcription), a leucine-zipper protein that interacts with ATF4 to form inactive dimers and inhibit ATF4 activity. We demonstrated the role of FIAT in bone physiology and the validity of FIAT as a drug target using genetically modified mice strains.

We developed a high-throughput screen based on the FIAT-ATF4 interaction to exploit the FIAT technology (US patent No. 7,414,109) for drug development and have identified a promising lead compound that could represent a first-in-class bone anabolic drug for bone regenerative medicine. Drugs that can increase osteoblast activity for bone regeneration would be efficacious for the treatment of osteoporosis and other metabolic bone diseases, for improving fracture repair and non-unions, or to accelerate the consolidation phase after distraction osteogenesis.

Jo Anne Stratton’s research interests are inspired by the complex and context-dependent interactions of immune cells within the nervous system which function to modulate regeneration and plasticity, but can also underlie pathologies such as demyelination and axonal degeneration leading to cognitive impairment and sensory/motor deficits. Her research platform spans basic in vitro cell culture interrogation of cellular interactions, to transgenic animal models which recapitulate responses to different injuries and diseases, to human cellular and histological analyses.

Maryam Tabrizian is professor in the Biomedical Engineering Department and the Faculty of Dentistry, and James McGill professor at McGill University. She became FRSQ-Chercheure nationale awardee (2006), Guggenheim Fellow in Biomedical Sciences (2010), the Fellow of the Biomaterials Science & Engineering (2011) and Fellow of Royal Society of Canada-Academy of Science (2017) for her contribution to the field of Biomedical Engineering and Biomedical Sciences. She has established expertise in the design of nano-biomaterials and nano-biointerfaces for their application in nanomedicine, regenerative medicine and Lab-on-a-chip devices. She was the director of the Centre for Biorecognition and Biosensors (CBB) for 10 years that she founded in 2001. She is the author of over 220 peer-reviewed papers (H-index 60), 100 invited lectures, many book chapters, patents, and over 330 communications. She is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Materials (MDPI ISSN 1996-1944; CODEN: MATEG9).

Dr. Tamimi is a Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) and an Associate Professor at McGill University Faculty of Dentistry, and the co-Director of the Quebec Network of Oral Health Research. He has published track record with 137 peer-reviewed published articles mainly in the filed of biomaterials and bone regeneration. He has an h-index of 29 and over 2600 citations. He has received important awards including the W.W. Wood Excellence in Teaching Award from the Association of Canadian Faculties of Dentistry. He has supervised to completion 10 PhD theses and his research lab at McGill university has received over 3 million dollars in cumulative research funding.

Jean I. Tchervenkov, MD, FRCSsC, FACS, is Associate Professor of Surgery at the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, Quebec. He is currently the Director of Live Donor Kidney Transplantation Services at the Victoria Hospital and Director of Pediatric Transplantation at The Montreal Children’s Hospital. His main research activities are in the areas of solid organ transplantation and immunosuppression. Dr. Tchervenkov has over 100 publications in peer reviewed medical journals and has presented over 150 abstracts. Dr. Tchervenkov graduated from McGill University, and came on staff at the Hospital in 1990. He is President of MD Specialists in Montreal.

The central focus of my research is to visualize host immune cell-pathogen interactions using intravital microscopy. We are particularly interested in how our innate immune system is able to control bacterial invaders, unravelling which pathways go wrong during disease. Through this central goal my research group has branched into 3 specific aims that align with regenerative medicine:

1. Understanding how e-cig vape exposure can modify the hemopoietic stem cell resulting in alterations in immune cell populations that less effective at clearing infection.
2. Understanding the role of innate immune cells in tissue regeneration on the cornea.
3. Deciphering how tissue injury can reprogram innate immune cell, causing increased infection susceptibility.

Dr. Tran is experienced in all three fields of research: basic science, translational research, and clinical studies. He is committed to the training of graduate and postdoctoral students in the area of stem cell biology and tissue engineering. The aim of this laboratory is to identify, isolate, and characterize post-natal stem cells of the craniofacial complex (such as salivary and periodontal stem cells). We are also working on the growth and behavior of post-natal stem cell on different 3-D tissue engineered matrices. Our hypothesis is that post-natal stem cells from one tissue (such as stem cells from the bone marrow) can differentiate into cells of another tissue (such as the salivary gland) and how to translate this phenomenon into clinically useful therapies to regenerate lost salivary gland tissue of patients experiencing the disabling effects of a dry mouth (i.e. reduced salivary secretion) due to Sjogren’s Syndrome or to the damage caused to the salivary glands following irradiation treatment for head and neck cancer. In addition to providing a new understanding of tissue dynamics in health and disease, the Tran’s laboratory presents unique possibilities for the emerging field of regenerative medicine.

Jacquetta Trasler is a Distinguished James McGill Professor in the Departments of Pediatrics, Human Genetics and Pharmacology & Therapeutics at McGill University and a Senior Scientist in the Child Health and Human Development Program at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC). She received her MD and PhD degrees from McGill University followed by postdoctoral training in reproductive molecular biology at Tufts University in Boston. Her research is in the field of reproductive and developmental epigenomics, as it pertains to normal development of children and the prevention of birth defects. Her group is interested in understanding the molecular and developmental regulation of gene expression in the male and female germlines with implications for the health of the resulting offspring. Among her specific interests are DNA methylation and genomic imprinting and the molecular and cellular targets for environmental effects on germ cells, including spermatogonial stem cells. In clinical studies she is examining the potential of assisted reproductive technologies, infertility, drug treatment and folate deficiency and supplementation to alter the human epigenome.

Dr. Michel L. Tremblay, Ph.D. is a James McGill Professor and former director of the Goodman Cancer Research Centre His laboratory works on characterizing the function and regulation of several members of the Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase (PTP) gene family using both biochemical and genetic approaches. Dr. Tremblay’s lab is also developing several new approaches towards PTP inhibition, as well as large siRNA gene family screens in order to uncover potential applications of these in various diseases (diabetes, obesity, spinal cord injury, neural degenerative diseases, intestinal bowel diseases and other inflammatory diseases), particularly in human cancers.

Jean-Francois Trempe obtained his doctorate degree from the University of Oxford in 2007. After postdoctoral training at McGill and the Montreal Neurological Institute, he obtained a Faculty position at McGill in 2013. His goal is to elucidate the function of proteins implicated in Parkinson’s disease (PD) through 3D structure determination and proteomics studies, as well as design small molecules to modulate their activities. In collaboration with the Michael J. Fox Foundation and the SGC, his lab aims to design and characterize small-molecules activators for Parkin and PINK1. He holds a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Structural Pharmacology and has received the New Investigator Award from Parkinson Canada in 2014. He has published a total of 48 articles during his career (H-index 24, 2692 citations), mostly on the topics of ubiquitin and neurodegenerative diseases. His most important contribution to date is the structure determination of Parkin, published in Science in 2013, which revealed the mechanism of action of this important PD target.

In October 2015, I was appointed Coordinator and Principal Investigator of the Motion Analysis Centre at Shriners Hospitals for Children – Canada. I am also an adjunct professor in the Department of Surgery, Division of Experimental Surgery, at McGill University. I am a member of the McGill Regenerative Medicine Network and a member of the Injury Repair Recovery Program and at the MUHC.
Kinesiologist by training, I hold a Ph.D. in Physical Activity Sciences from the University of Montreal, with a specialization in human movement control and learning. Between 2010 and 2015, I completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Shriners Hospitals for Children – Canada and the Department of Pediatrics at McGill University under the supervision of Dr. Frank Rauch. Concurrently, I trained in quantified gait analysis at the Marie Enfant Rehabilitation Centre’s Gait Analysis Laboratory.
My research interest is directly in line with regenerative medicine. I focus on two main field of research: Gait and motion analysis in youth with musculoskeletal disorders and Sports Medicine. My research in the field of gait analysis is oriented towards understanding the impact of a disorder on patients’ gait and mobility function and to quantify the improvements that occur following a surgery or a physical therapy intervention. For sports medicine, my interest lies in identifying risk factors for re-injury following a anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear and reconstruction and to identifying risk factors for a first ACL tear injury. It also aims at identifying factors leading to better recovery following ACL-reconstruction surgery.
All of my research and clinical work is focused on providing better care to patients and improving their quality of life. I have published 40 peer-reviewed scientific articles and these articles have been cited over 700 times.

Dr. Vinh is an Infectious Disease specialist and Medical Microbiologist at the MUHC, and FRQS Clinician-scientist with a translational research program at the RI-MUHC focusing on human genetic susceptibility to infectious diseases.

My laboratory focuses on the utilising the latest advances in stem cell biology, materials science and manufacturing to generate lung and airway tissue ex vivo. Bioengineering tissue in the laboratory holds immense promise for designing tissue that could one day be transplanted into patients with acute and chronic lung diseases, for which there are currently no therapies. As a few notable examples, we have developed techniques to 3D bioprint small airways as well as to encapsulate single cells in hydrogels for exploration as transplantatable small tissue units. In addition, these novel ex vivo models of lung and airway tissue offer a unique opportunity to study lung disease and regeneration at the molecular level, especially when human cells and tissue are used. We use techniques such as 3D bioprinting and microfluidics to build these advanced models of human tissue. These models are particularly advantageous for better identifying and validating potential compounds to treat human disease with and allow for advanced techniques, such as a variety of ‘omics’ techniques to be applied to better understand regenerative processes in human lungs.

My laboratory explores the roles of the ubiquitin system in vivo. We are particularly interested in its roles in muscle growth and atrophy as well as its roles in spermatogenesis. Our recent studies implicate the ubiquitin system in regulating the activity and differentiation of muscle stem cells – the satellite cells- as well as in the establishment of a maintenance of spermatogonial stem cells. Harnessing the potential of these stem cells may lead to novel approaches to the treatment of muscle wasting as well as to the protection of fertility in men who will undergo either sterilizing radiation or chemotherapy.

Dr. Wurzba DDS, MSc, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery at McGill University. Additionally, she serves as a Project Director at the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research – Segal Cancer Centre. Dr. Wurzba’s academic contributions extend beyond her primary department, as she holds associate memberships in Experimental Medicine, Oncology, and the Faculty of Dentistry at McGill University.

Dr. Wurzba’s research is characterized by a commitment to both fundamental and translational studies, with a central focus on prevention, early detection, and novel treatment strategies for patients with advanced head and neck cancer. Her interdisciplinary approach to research, coupled with her extensive expertise in oral surgery, molecular pathology, genomics, and oncology, positions her as a leader in the field. Throughout her career, Dr. Wurzba has been dedicated to pushing the boundaries of scientific discovery and innovation. Her research has played a pivotal role in our understanding of the intricate mechanisms underlying head and neck cancer progression, including tumor cell plasticity and their interactions within the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment. Dr. Wurzba’s scholarly contributions have been widely recognized. Her research findings have been published in several scientific journals and presented at national and international conferences.

As a professor, mentor, and researcher, Dr. Wurzba is deeply committed to developing the next generation of scientists and clinicians. Through her mentorship and guidance, she inspires aspiring researchers to pursue excellence and make meaningful contributions to the field of oncology.

Our research interest is centered around how pluripotency is established and maintained in development and embryonic stem cells (ESCs). Using live imaging and modern genetic tools like CRISPR-Cas9, we are currently studying molecular mechanisms links of cell morphology, 3D cell positioning and gene regulation, which are tightly associated with pluripotency.

Ma’n H. Zawati (LL.B., LL.M., Ph.D. (DCL)) is an Assistant Professor at McGill University’s Faculty of Medicine and the Executive Director of the Centre of Genomics and Policy in the Department of Human Genetics. He is also an Associate Member of the Biomedical Ethics Unit and the Division of Experimental Medicine at McGill University. His research concentrates on the legal, ethical and policy dimensions of health research and clinical care, with a special focus on biobanking, data sharing, professional liability, stem cell and regenerative medicine, and the use of novel technologies (e.g. mhealth apps, WGS, WES) in both the clinical and research settings. Prof. Zawati is funded by Fonds de Recherche du Québec, the Stem Cell Network, Genome Quebec and Genome Canada. His work is interdisciplinary, drawing together perspectives from law, ethics, bioinformatics, genomics, and policy. He’s also a frequent presenter on a variety of the most critical and topical issues in healthcare and the biosciences. He has appeared at 150+ international conferences, symposia, meetings, and has shared his expertise with universities, research ethics boards and law firms. Prof. Zawati has published 17 book chapters and 64+ peer reviewed articles in leading publications such as Nature Reviews Genetics, the Canadian Medical Association Journal, and the Journal of Law and the Biosciences. Prof. Zawati is co-investigator on the Examining engineered hematopoietic stem cells as vehicles for next generation therapies project and on Responsible pathways for paediatric cell therapies, both of which are based at the Université de Montréal and will advance Prof. Zawati’s interests in the important legal and ethical dimensions of novel stem cell research and regenerative medicine. In 2015, he was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Scholarship (stay at Oxford University) and was named a Royal Society of Canada Delegate for the IAP Young Scientists of the Year international symposium. In 2021, Prof. Zawati received his J1 FRQS Career Award.